Memorial(80)

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Mitsuko tells us she isn’t cooking on her last night in the country, so we drive to a profoundly nondescript Tex-Mex restaurant around the block.

The atmosphere is entirely too festive for our mood. Salsa plays over the din of white folks cashing in on happy hour. A young guy in a tuxedo shepherds us toward our table, giving us a once-over, and then a twice-over. After that, he hands us off to a waitress who can’t be older than fifteen.

But she doesn’t miss a beat. She notes everyone’s orders, and all of Mike’s addendums, and asks questions, and makes suggestions, and after repeating it all back to us she disappears.

Mike ends up with a water to start. I finagle a beer. Mitsuko sits across from a margarita the size of her head, and none of us says anything while dining party after dining party screams around us.

In the booth across from ours, I catch a kid peeking over his mother’s shoulder. When I try squinting him away, the little boy doesn’t even blink.

After two long pulls, Mitsuko reduces her margarita by half.

So, she says, what are our plans?

Your flight’s at six, says Mike. We’ll have you there by five.

No, says Mitsuko, waving him away, and turning to me.

What do you plan to do about each other? she says.

Benson, says Mitsuko, has my son told you what he wants?

I turn to Mike. He’s looking at his mother, with yet another face I can’t read.

We aren’t talking about this right now, he says.

Of course we are, says Mitsuko. Benson?

Mike’s leaving, I say. To Osaka. And I’m gonna stay here.

And that’s it? says Mitsuko.

I think so, I say.

Mm, says Mitsuko, and she downs the rest of her margarita.

When our waitress flies by the table for refills, Mitsuko asks her for another round.

Ma, says Mike.

Beloved, says Mitsuko.

Look, she says, once the drink is across from her. Did I ever tell you about my first date with Eiju?

I was living in Osaka for a bit, says Mitsuko. He suggested a bar. Which is entirely original. No one’s ever done that before. And in my head, I’m not thinking, I’m better than this. I’m not thinking that he’s just out here for a good time. I’m not even thinking about what he’s really after, because I had a boyfriend at the time, a good one. Stable. He was Eiju’s cousin, actually. And I didn’t know shit then, but Eiju told me where to meet him, and I told him that was okay. And when I made it to our spot a little early, I scoped out the place. It seemed perfectly normal. I got my little drink and I waited.

Three hours passed before I left. One hundred and eighty minutes. He never came. Never showed. I was mad and I was relieved because this was exactly the sort of thing I should’ve expected to happen, but it eliminated any choice I would’ve had to make. I saw my boyfriend the next afternoon, and I didn’t even tell him about it, and I thought to myself that this was just an act of God. This was Him course-correcting my life.

Our waitress returns with another guy in tow. They set three platters of fried fish and stewed pinto beans and yellow rice on the table. The new guy ladles tortillas into a bowl, and he lingers a moment to stare at Mike, but Mitsuko’s son doesn’t even look up, he’s just watching his mother.

Mitsuko picks up a fork, slicing at her food, not really eating any of it.

I don’t see Eiju again until the next week, she says. He knocks on my door until I open it. And when I do, he’s all beat up. He’s got bandages on his knuckles. Bruises all over his face. He’s so tarnished that I have to ask what happened, and do you know what he tells me? None of your business. And just like that, I’m only someone to him. Or no one. Just this girl who’s dating his cousin. I shut the door in his face.

He and I don’t speak again for months, even though he’s always at my boyfriend’s house, smoking on the sofa. But a few weeks later, one of my boyfriend’s friends told me it was my boyfriend who’d beaten Eiju. Either the morning of our date, or the evening before. He’d gone to his apartment and sat on the sofa and then beat the life out of his cousin. I didn’t believe that at first, and when I asked my boyfriend, he denied it. But he was lying, and I could tell. The truth came out. He told me he was too ashamed to tell me. He was afraid of losing me, he loved me so much, and I told him that whatever we’d had was over.

I stopped going to my boyfriend’s apartment, so Eiju had to come back to me. And eventually he did. In the middle of the night. Fully dressed in a suit and a jacket, looking like a clown. I asked if he’d been drinking, and of course he had, but he said he wanted to take me out. By then, I knew better, but I figured it was the least I could do. I told him we weren’t going anywhere too far. So I changed into some slippers, and I threw on a jacket, and we ate at the curry place across the road.

The whole meal, all Eiju talked about was how good the curry was. But I’d grown up with it. I’d been eating there for years whenever I was in Osaka. He ordered one bowl, and then another, and I asked him why he hadn’t told me it was my boyfriend who’d done it. And, Michael, your father looked at me with food in his mouth, and he said, For one thing, you wouldn’t have believed me. You would’ve thought I was bullshitting. But the thing about guys like that is they eventually show their asses, and you liked him too much. It would’ve fucked you up if I’d said anything, if you hadn’t found out on your own.